


Barrows

by pinebluffvariant



Category: The X-Files
Genre: F/M, The X-Files Revival
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-30
Updated: 2015-10-30
Packaged: 2018-04-28 22:54:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,301
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5108597
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pinebluffvariant/pseuds/pinebluffvariant
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“You’ve earned this,” says every single furrow of a brow, every line around every eye, every gray hair and the weight of the years on their bodies. And then they’re off.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Barrows

On a Friday afternoon, Mulder and Scully get out of a cab just a few blocks from the basement where they used to eat hotdogs at midnight and argue over evidence, when they were young. The streets are cleaner than they used to be, back then. The air is too. At least it feels that way today.

They share a foamy cappuccino and stroll over to the towering, brutalist Moultrie Courthouse, hand in hand.

Their clothes are all clean lines and intention, focus and authority, projecting an air of an undeniable truth. They have come here before, countless times over the years, to give testimony on behalf of others, on behalf of justice. This time the suit, the dress, are chosen not to conform to an institutional standard, but to be themselves. Today they testify to each other.

*******

He stands behind her with his hand on her hip, waiting to go through the metal detector.

“I miss my badge,” Mulder mutters, “I want to wave it around and skip this security line.”

“Congratulations,” says an elderly woman half Scully’s size who has been eyeing them for five minutes. “God bless you both.”

Suddenly, Scully groans and jerks her head to the right. “Look.” 

They watch Skinner flash his badge at the employee entrance, and disappear, more important than ever, up the judges’ elevator. The civilian line takes another ten minutes to move.

*******

It is a simple ceremony. Two witnesses come to see them. There are two minutes of easy, weighty vows. They treat themselves to two kisses in front of the judge, their former boss, and her mother. The only one person left in their parents’ generation, one person left who knows where they came from. And the two of them, amazingly, still here.

They eat two courses prix fixe, plus a shared dessert, at The Oval Room. There are a few toasts, tears, hugs and well-wishes. “You’ve earned this,” says every single furrow of a brow, every line around every eye, every gray hair and the weight of the years on their bodies. And then they’re off.

*******

Two glasses of champagne in first class, British Airways to London Heathrow. They get giggly and take their time with the hot towels, a novelty for the usual budget traveler. They spend minutes getting clean, rubbing the flannel over each other’s rings.

“I’ve waited twenty-three years for this upgrade,” says Scully and wraps the ‘luxury’ airline blanket around herself. She kicks off her heels and sinks deep into the fully reclining leather seat. She looks like she belongs there, resting like royalty in the best transatlantic airline seat money can buy, suspended improbably 30,000 feet above the ocean, offered up to the heavens as evidence of the divine. 

*******

Their rental car, another treat, is a tiny racy thing that barely seats two. She strokes its hunter green hood and taps her nails on the lacquer. So English. Twenty minutes of left-hand traffic instruction later, she is behind the wheel. He learns something new about her then: She really is an excellent driver, and the red of her hair burns brightest against waxed and buffed sports cars on an overcast day. The line of her nose is crisp and clean against the steel of the sky. 

*******

The highways here are cozy two-laners, no rush for anyone. SUVs give way to Volvo station wagons as they leave the exurbs and travel deeper into the leafy, murky countryside. Wiltshire is at its most lush this time of year, and at its most feral. Scully says she can almost feel the vines twine themselves around her, just looking at the hedges that line the road. 

“Like in Oregon,” Mulder thinks aloud. It doesn’t hurt at all to say it. 

“Like in Oregon,” she repeats and makes a sharp left, narrowly avoiding a collision with a fox, whose wild fur is nearly but not quite the shade of red Scully’s hair was in 2001, when her body was humming with their love, with their child.

The animal scampers away, into the brush. There is no blood on the road, not today. She steps on the gas; they speed away, due west.

*******

Mulder has pilfered an airline blanket from the plane, along with two mini bottles of champagne and a bag of chips. He spreads their feast out, takes off his shoes and socks, and lounges in the soft grass at the top of the burial mound. He is still in his best suit. It feels good to ground himself, to bring this artifact of ceremony into contact with the soil. Somewhere below him lie the remnants of a Bronze Age life, a body and its property and dreams. Here at the top, the view is clear: things are looking up.

Down the hill, Scully stands at the towering heel stone, barefoot in her modest but dreamy dress, and looks out over Stonehenge. She is small, dwarfed by the stones, whose weight and age have seen civilizations rise and fall. 

“It only took me eleven years to finally get you here,” he yells.

She turns and looks at him and smiles. She pads up the grassy, mossy path, makes a beeline straight for him. 

They have been awake a long time. They hadn’t wanted to miss a thing, these first heady hours after having said it out loud, having said yes. They had checked into the W after lunch yesterday, had taken a quick bath, and then gasped and laughed their way through an afternoon of frantic release, of fluttering eyelids and open amazement. “Can you believe this?” he had groaned against her throat. “Yes,” she had replied, “yes.”

Now, Scully’s eyelids are heavy, but her eyes are the clearest he’s ever seen them. She’s beaming, radiant. Together they are in a dream state, a balloon of history and feeling that won’t burst, not any time soon.

“Eleven years, Scully,” he repeats with mirth in his voice, “I just wanted to take you on vacation.”

Her amused squint and familiar eye roll are nothing, he thinks, if not proof positive of the fine line between love and death. 

“So you should have just asked,” she sighs and melts into the blanket, “and not concocted one of your ridiculous plans.” Her dress fans out around both their bodies when she kneels between his outstretched legs.

“If I’d known a proposal was all it took,” he says and passes her one of the champagne bottles. She sips and holds the bottle out to him. He cranes his neck and lets her put the mouth of the bottle to his lips. She tips it, allows him one small swallow before taking it back. Again she drinks and narrows her eyes at him.

“Don’t forget who proposed to whom.”

He lies down in the grass, face upturned to the sky. A whiff of her perfume breezes past his face as she joins him, flat on her back with gauzy fabric rustling quietly around her milky thighs. She takes his hand and rests it, clutching his fingers, on her chest. The wind waxes and wanes. Her breath rises and falls. It is quiet.

For a moment, she turns her head and looks at him, irises gray like the sky and full of meaning. Again, she turns her gaze to the sky. Out of the corner of his eye, he sees her eyelids slip shut, and joins her. They breathe.

For a long time there is nothing but the wind, the occasional car whooshing by, and the faintest sound of champagne bubbles fizzling out into the air above. Rays of sunshine break through the clouds and hit their closed eyelids.

Scully’s whisper is almost imperceptible against the gentle breeze. But of course he hears her.

“Listen,” she breathes. “Do you hear him?”

“I do.”


End file.
